Tom Glavine, born in Concord, Massachusetts, and raised in Billerica, Massachusetts, is renowned for his stellar career in Major League Baseball (MLB). However, before he became a celebrated pitcher, Glavine excelled in ice hockey.
Early Life and Hockey Career
Glavine attended Billerica Memorial High School, where he was an excellent student and a letterman in ice hockey as well as baseball. He was a four-year member of the honor roll and the National Honor Society. In hockey, he scored 47 goals and 47 assists in 23 high school games, and as a senior, he was named the Merrimack Valley's Most Valuable Player. In baseball, he led his team to the Division I North Title and the Eastern Massachusetts Championship as a senior. He graduated from high school in 1984 with honors.
As Glavine reached high school, he was still playing both sports competitively. He went on hockey recruiting trips with schools hoping to lock in players before their senior year. Baseball remained an option. It was clear at that time that Glavine had options should he want to pursue either sport following high school. A decision would have to eventually be made.
Growing up in Billerica, Mass., hockey was Glavine’s first love. Born in 1966, the memories are still there of watching Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito play for the Boston Bruins. Growing up in a region that was a hot bed for the sport, it didn’t take long for him to tell his parents he wanted to learn how to skate.
As he got older, Glavine became a quality athlete in both sports, but hockey had an edge over baseball. “It kicked in before baseball,” Glavine told NBC Sports during his weekend at the American Century Championship golf tournament in Lake Tahoe. “I was a better hockey player at that stage of my life. I had a good arm and I was a good baseball player, but I was a more polished hockey player. I think I had a little bit more interest from colleges for hockey.”
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The Hockey Hall of Fame."I got drafted ahead of [Luc] Robitaille and Brett Hull and those guys are in the Hall of Fame, so clearly I would have been a Hall of Fame hockey player, but I say that 100% kidding," the two-time NL Cy Young winner clarified with a laugh.
Drafted in Two Sports
Glavine was drafted by both the Los Angeles Kings in the 1984 NHL Entry Draft (in the fourth round, 69th overall-two rounds ahead of future National Hockey League star Brett Hull and five rounds ahead of Luc Robitaille, both 2009 Hockey Hall of Fame inductees), and the Atlanta Braves Major League Baseball organization in the second round of the 1984 amateur baseball draft.
Five days after the Braves selected Glavine in the second round of the 1984 Major League Baseball draft, the Los Angeles Kings picked the center, who had 47 goals and 94 points in 23 games his senior year, 69th overall ahead of future Hockey Hall of Famers Luc Robitaille and Brett Hull and longtime veterans Kirk McLean, Don Sweeney, Cliff Ronning, and Gary Suter.
Glavine had already committed to the University of Lowell because the school had both baseball and hockey. Kings general manager Rogie Vachon rang Glavine and said that he understood his decision to go to college and that they would talk after his junior year. The Braves, meanwhile, were much more aggressive informing Glavine that a representative would be coming to his home in a few days to convince him to sign and play baseball.
“That was the difference,” Glavine said. “It really became an exercise in hearing the Braves out, hearing what they had to say, and see if they were going to ultimately give me enough of a signing bonus that was going to make it worth my while to walk away from a college scholarship.”
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Once the excitement from that whirlwind week wore off, Glavine faced a tough decision. While the Kings were keen to wait and see how he developed in school, as a second rounder in baseball, the Braves were far more aggressive in their pitch.
When his final season of high school baseball ended, Glavine remembers that the Braves were at his door almost the very next day. A few days after he and his parents talked with the club, Glavine made his choice. He was going to sign a contract with Atlanta and become a professional baseball player.
Although he loved hockey, Glavine knew it was the right decision for his future. He may have had a more complete game on the ice at the time, but he felt he had so much more untapped potential waiting for him in baseball.
"As a hockey player, I was 6 feet tall, 175 pounds. There was nothing special about that," he said. "But as a baseball player, I was a left-handed pitcher and that was, and still is, a commodity. I felt like that was the deciding factor me that I needed to take advantage of."
Tom Glavine finally gets to talk about his hockey career
Transition to Baseball
Glavine made his major league debut on August 17, 1987. Glavine had mixed results during his first four seasons in the Majors, compiling a 33-43 record from 1987 to 1990, including a 17-loss performance in 1988. His fortunes turned around in 1991, when he won 20 games and posted a 2.55 earned run average. It was his first of three consecutive seasons with 20 or more wins, and saw him earn his first National League Cy Young Award.
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Glavine was the ace of the 1991 Braves' starting rotation that included Steve Avery, Charlie Leibrandt, and another future NL Cy Young Award winner and Hall of Fame inductee, John Smoltz. His season helped ensure a dramatic reversal in the Braves' competitive fortunes as they won the National League pennant and earned a trip to the World Series, though they lost to the Minnesota Twins in seven games. Atlanta, long thought of as a perennial cellar dweller, was lifted in the 1990s into one of the most successful franchises in the game on the strength of its stellar pitching staff and solid hitting.
After the Braves signed free-agent Greg Maddux from the Chicago Cubs in 1993, Glavine, Maddux, and Smoltz formed one of the best pitching rotations in baseball history. Among them, they won seven Cy Young Awards during the period of 1991 to 1998. Glavine won his second Cy Young Award in 1998, going 20-6 with a 2.47 ERA. Years later, after Glavine joined the Mets and Maddux played for the San Diego Padres, the three (along with Smoltz who still pitched for Atlanta) all recorded wins on the same day, June 27, 2007.
The Braves defeated the Cleveland Indians in six games in the 1995 World Series, and Glavine was named the Series MVP. He won two games during that series: Game 2 and Game 6.
Key Achievements:
- 164 victories during the 1990s
- Five-time 20-game winner
- Two-time Cy Young Award winner
- 1995 World Series MVP
- 300 career wins
Later Career and Retirement
In 2003, Glavine left Atlanta to play for the rival New York Mets, signing a four-year, $42.5 million deal. Glavine's performance had slumped in the second half of 2002 and he was ineffective in his two postseason starts, so Atlanta refused to guarantee a third year on his contract.
The Mets' faith in Glavine was rewarded when he returned to his old form during the 2006 season. He finished one victory shy of the NL lead in wins and was selected to the All-Star team. That season Tom Glavine became the first Mets left-hander in nearly 30 years to start at least thirty games in four consecutive seasons.
On August 5, 2007, Glavine won his 300th game, against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field on ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball. On November 18, 2007, Glavine rejoined the Braves, seemingly bringing his career full circle, with a one-year contract worth $8 million.
On February 11, 2010, Glavine officially retired as a player, having strongly hinted at that decision throughout the prior few months.
Legacy
Even at the end of his career, he was an effective starting pitcher in the National League due to his excellent control and deception, changing speeds, and locating pitches off the outside corner of the strike zone. Glavine's consistency was also highlighted by his durability; beginning with his first full year, in 1988, he started at least 25 games every season and was never placed on the disabled list until his final season-at age 42.
Like longtime Atlanta teammates Greg Maddux and John Smoltz, Glavine was one of the better-hitting pitchers of his generation. Starting in 1991, Tom Glavine served as the Atlanta Braves team representative to the Major League Baseball Players Association, succeeding former NL Most Valuable Player and Braves icon Dale Murphy in the position.
Glavine is known for being humble about his accomplishments and an avid golfer, so a good friend, Jack Kennedy, gifted Glavine six dozen golf balls that display his uniform number, 47, on one side and the number of losses he had in his career on the other, 203.
| Statistic | Value |
|---|---|
| Career Wins | 305 |
| Cy Young Awards | 2 |
| World Series MVP | 1995 |
| All-Star Appearances | 10 |